Twelve Tips to Improve Your Relationship

1. Things to Think About 1. Take stock of what is truly important in your life. How would you spend your time if you had six weeks to live? Relationships are often more important than we realize. 2. Accept compromise and tolerate the persistent differences with your partner. Most happy couples learn to live with significant differences about money, in-laws, vacations, household chores, etc. 3. Identify and separate your frustrations. Frustrations come from many sources: work, children, school etc. Avoid dumping frustrations on your partner that belong somewhere else. 2. Things to Do 4. Catch your partner doing something right. Look for partner behaviors that are pleasing, and compliment your partner when he or she does them. 5. Surprise your partner with thoughtfulness. Use your knowledge of your partner to please him or her unexpectantly. Allow your partner to discover your thoughtfulness by her or himself. Curb your disappointment if your partner misses your effort. Try something else. 6. Carve out “couple time” your partner will enjoy. Our busy lives often fill up with tasks. Take time to spend with your partner. 3. Manage Tense Moments 7. Before reacting angrily, count to ten. This old adage actually works. Speak your point, but without the anger. Every expression of negative emotion requires five expressions of positive emotion to regain a position of neutral feeling. (For more, check out “Reducing Negativity”)

8. Negotiate an unconventional place to discuss contentious issues. Moving from your usual location of arguments to another room can shift your disagreements enough to reduce negative feelings and introduce new ideas. 9. Take a time out. When issues get heated, politely announce a twenty-minute time out and then return with a calm tone and the intention to compromise. 10. When you know you have made a mistake, apologize. Few of us live closely with a partner without making mistakes. Accept your own fallibility. Express transgressions specifically and sincerely. 4. Listen with Your Heart 11. Avoid problem solving. Many partners seek to relieve the frustrations of daily life by sharing them with a partner. Truly listening fosters a binding force in the relationship. However, impatient listeners tend to shorten the process by prematurely offering solutions before the partner finished expressing the frustration. When you have a solution say, “When you are ready I have a solution that might be helpful to you.” 12. Deeply listen to your partner. On an issue that is important to your partner, repeat your partner’s words so that he or she knows you are really listening. Keep this up until your partner stops, then say the most challenging words in a relationship, “Is there anything else?” Continue listening until your partner can answer “No” to this question. This is difficult to do but any effort will help strengthen your relationship. (For more, check out “Deep Listening.”)

Plan of Action

As an Individual. Select at least one “Tip” for each of the four sections above. For a few days, get familiar with them as you watch your partner and yourself interact. Then, without telling your partner, implement your Tips for a couple of weeks and look for differences in your relationship. When the Tips seem to work, continue. When the Tips seem to have little or a negative effect, stop. Look for other “Tips” or behaviors that might help.

As a Couple. Read the Twelve Tips and agree to conduct an experiment. Both of you will privately select a Tip from each of the four sections above. Then implement your chosen Tips for a length of time, such as 3 weeks. Try to guess the “Tip-related” behaviors that you see your partner doing, however neither of you are to tell which Tips you are implementing. At the end of the designated time, your partner’s goal and yours is to identify the Tips selected at the beginning and visa versa. Finally, reveal the Tips on which you are working. This experiment will help identify the strengths your relationship. You may repeat the experiment with the same or different set of Tips of your choosing. For the sake of your relationship, do more of what is working and less of what seems to be ineffective.

Next Steps

Self-help Books. If you like to read self-help books, consider the books I recommend under “Resources.”

Relationship Enhancement Programs. These programs are design to build upon committed relationships. They are not for troubled marriages. Religious organizations provide or can help you identify relationship enhancement programs.

Professional Help. Over the years, committed relationship can become stuck, frustrating and even harmful. When a reasonable amount of time does not allow positive changes to re-emerge, consider professional help.

Many psychotherapists claim to do relationship consulting and therapy. However, many have not been trained adequately. Being a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) assures that the psychotherapist has the proper training. To locate an AAMFT clinical member in your area, go to www.aamft.org.

Contact me. I practice in the Milwaukee area. I have flexible hours. For couples therapy, a workshop, call my voice mail 414-962-4048 or email a question about the Twelve Tips: hirschmann.mark@sbcglobal.net.